Some Pioneer Recollections

SOME PIONEER RECOLLECTIONS

Read by Robert Campbell, at the Annual Meeting of the Washtenaw Pioneer Society

Washtenaw county has always had a number of leading representative men among its pioneers. Ypsilanti has had a goodly share. Some of the songs to be remembered today have a historic interest worthy of mention in connection with some of said pioneers. There are numerous items of historic interest known only to some of those now living, which have never been recorded, when the persons die these historical inceidents are buried with them and are thus lost to posterity. I refer at this time to incidents connected with two war songs, "The Battle Cry of Freedom," and the soliloquy of the "Volunteer's Wife." Nearly all of the pioneers will remember those stirring times of the war of the rebellion and some of the pioneers, after more than a year of slaughter and bloodshed, that, with the war in the east, between Washington and Richmond, the Confederate armies were in the main triumphant, and our people in the north became very uneasy. Some declared the war a failure and clamored for a cessation of hostilities. Others were aroused to renewed action. This county had already sent out several companies of men to the battle field. After our reverses there was renewed call for more men. Professor Welch, principal of the Normal school was very enthusiastic and burned with a patriotic fervor. He was the chief factor in forming the nucleus of a company among the students of the Normal.  These with students from the University and high schools together with other men from the surrounding county, formed a strong, intelligent and soldier like company, which was assigned to the Seventeenth Michigan Infantry and sent immediately to the front.

While the company were being recruited, through public meeting and otherwise, great assistance was rendered in the singing of war songs by Professors Foote and Pease, of the Normal school, at some of these war meeting, so that the company were almost like a drilled chorus when they eammingled with the union army. When the regiment reached Washington all was confusion, our union army under Gen. Pope was being driven back, and it looked as if the nation's capital would soon be in the hands of the enemy. The most reliable troops were called for to defend and hold the chief avenues leading into Washington. The Normal company, as it was called, was detached and sent to guard the May Yard bridge, and exceedingly important position. As the city was infested with spies and traitors no one was to be called to cross the bridge without the proper insignia or passport, all of which requires careful scrutiny on the part of the officers in charge. The position was a trying one, as it was several times reported that the rebel cavalry were about to charge upon the bridge so that for a considerable time there was quite a nervous strain on the part of the company which was held in readiness for any emergency. The enemy being baffled as to entering Washington they crossed the Potomac river into Maryland and pushed on towards the north, singing such songs as the "Bonnie Blue Flag" and "Maryland, My Maryland," creating quite a sensation and consternation among the loyal citizens and rejoicing among the disloyal ones. The union army followed in close pursuit and for several days marched after Gen. Lee's defiant and seemingly invincible army which pushed forward until it reached the mountain range, called South Mountain, where the confederate army made a stand fortifying and firmly holding the different passes and about the same time capturing Harper's Ferry with over 11,000 union men.

The Normal company, with its regiment, followed on with the army not distracted or dismayed, but, almost continually singing their war songs, until nearly the whole regiment caught up the trains and sang with them Prominent among the songs was a new one by the composer, Leo F. Root, of Chicago, entitled "The Battle Cry of Freedom," which resounded through the hills and dales of Maryland.

"Down with the traitor and up  with the stars

While we rally around the flag boys rally once again

Shouting the battle cry of freedom."

This dashing regiment with its new uniforms and gaudy regulation hats engendered somewhat the envy and almost contempt of some of the older veteran regiments, and by some were designated as that singing blue hat regiment. "We'll see," said some of the boys from the veteran regiments, "how their songs will change when they begin to hear the cannons and the whistle of the bullets and to see the blood run."

The mountain range is reached by the union army and they find that the rebels are strongly entrenched up the top of it holding the different passes.

It was a crucial test, a decisive moment when this new regiment were asked if they were willing to undertake that hazardous task of charging up the mountain side in the face of those belching cannon upon the top of the mountain and in front of those lines of gleaming muskets and to assist in the attempt of driving the enemy from his stronghold. The regiment is willing. Just before making the charge the colonel of the regiment said, "now men remember that the eyes of Michigan are upon you." The charge was made. The stronghold was captured, and a brigade of the rebels from Georgia were driven per men over the mountain. No longer the taunts and jeers of the plug hat regiment, out hereafter to be known as the "Stonewall regiment." And they thus make good the sentiments expressed in their defiant and seemingly braggadocia strains of the song, "Down with the traitor and up with the stars."

Within a few hours after the battle the whole nation was electrified with the telegrams of a grand charge and victory, at last, over the enemy by a new Michigan regiment. It was then that not only the eyes of Michigan but the eyes and hearts of the whole nation were upon this regiment.

A member of the company afterwards said: "When the colonel made his speech and we were about to charge, I felt my heart creeping up into my throat, then our captain passed in front of the company and said, 'now boys when you start keep cool and aim low,' it seemed almost no time after that when the rebels were flying before us." Several years after the war Prof. Welch in addressing a public meeting in the west said: "I had taught in the schools of Michigan, was principal of the Normal school, was U. S. Senator, president of a western college, but the proudest theme for reference in my career is the record of the Normal company.

A few days after this battle and that of Antietam, I was placed in charge of a team with its escort, sent to Harper's Ferry for army supplies, passing over these fresh, gay, battlefields, amongst those under my command were several rebel prisoners, one a confederate officer on horseback. We rode along together talking guardedly about war matters. I asked him what state he was from, he Georgia. In return he asked me a like question, I replied Michigan. Ah! Michigan! Michigan! he said; great fighters. You had a new regiment – a singing regiment – which gave us the devil upon this battlefield, we were at that time passing over South Mountain.

The other song referred to was composed by Prof. F. H. Pease, it represented the soliloquy of a "Volunteer's Wife." It was dedicated to the wife of Captain Lumford of the 4th Michigan Infantry. I was also a member of the same regiment and for a time 1st lieutenant in the same company. We had quite often sung this and other songs together. This plaintive war song began:

I knew by the light of his deep dark

eye,

When we heard the sound of the mustering drum.

That he never would fold his hands

and sigh,

Over the evils that were to come.

I knew that the blood of a patriot

sire

Coursed through his veins like a stream of fire,

So I took his hand and bade him

go,

But he never knew that it grieved me so.

Two fair haired children he left with me,

Who lisp his name at the eventide,

*               *               *             *           *

He never again may hear their tones ...Or kiss the lips of his little ones.

This volunteer had passed unscathed through almost three years of service in the army of the Potomac in such battles as Frederickburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and a number of other battles and skirmishes, until within six weeks of the end of a three years term of service. When in that awful battle of the Wilderness he was mortally wounded. When I saw him writhing in the agonies of death upon that terrific field, how vividly that soliloquy of the "Volunteer's Wife" came to my thoughts.

Although the battle was still raging the contending armies cheering and yelling and the pine trees crashing form the storm of bullets I could not refrain from humming that prophetic war song, especially the couplet:

He never again will hear the tones,

Or kiss the lips of his little ones.

But the die was cast, the had come. "Oh!" he muttered, "must I die and be buried in this hated Virginia soil?" Ah; these strange indescribable feelings that came over the soldier at times when in battle. Those vivid visions that flit before us when life seems to hang by a frail existence on the borders of eternity.

Professors Welch and Foote and other prominent actors of Ypsilanti in that grand drama have passed to the other shore. Some are yet with us. Prominent amongst those who stirred our heart cords with patriotic songs was Prof. F. H. Pease, who is still with us.

Those two pioneer songs referred to will be rendered today under the direction of that remaining pioneer whom we are always pleased to hear.

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